


[HIATUS] Two Small People And Their Lions

by Frogluv123



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Blood, Blood and Injury, Fluff, Incomplete, Magic, More tags to be added, Pidge actually needs glasses, Warnings inside, gender neutral pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, i tried okay, i'm not really sorry, non-binary character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 04:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10824156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frogluv123/pseuds/Frogluv123
Summary: Pidge was definitely not okay.One second, they had been flying with the team, doing drills and flying with the team, the next- a wormhole or something similar had opened directly in front of their lion, sucking them in. They were fine for a second, and then they felt like reality itself decided to implode on them.//A giant, green, metallic animal crashes from the sky into Steven's front yard.





	1. One.

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMERS: I do not own, nor claim to own, anything from the canon Voltron: Legendary Defenders or Steven Universe series'. All I own is the plot, the writing itself, any background characters, and my little headcanons. 
> 
> WARNINGS: Blood/gore, possible violence, swearing, possible dark themes??? Individual warnings will be posted for each chapter, but the first few will definitely have blood. 
> 
> HEADCANNON USAGE: Nothing major. I'm adjusting the Voltron team's cannon age a bit and making Steven a tiny bit more mature, and there's obviously the fact that they exist in the same universe and all that. Nothing major, just regular fan-fic adjustments to make things work.
> 
> SPOILER WARNINGS: Set right before StevenBomb five/ no idea when in the Voltron universe. Basically anywhere after the team learns how to form Voltron with possible allusions to past scenes. No real spoilers for Voltron, though.
> 
> ((totally can be seen as an alt to the wormhole incident in episode 11!))
> 
> That's all, I hope you enjoy!

The camera had gone out. All they could hear was their screams, ringing in their ears, a sound of pure anguish and agony that none would forget to their dying days and beyond.

Pidge was definitely not okay.

Pidge felt like they were being crushed, pulled apart at the seams, melted, disintegrated, snapped into tiny bits, ground into dust, imploded, exploded, dripping dripping their body was dripping oh god what do I do this shouldn't be possible wha-

One second, they had been flying with the team, doing drills and flying with the team, the next- a wormhole or something similar had opened directly in front of their lion, sucking them in. They were fine for a second, and then they felt like reality itself decided to implode on them.

Their throat (did they still have one? Were they even still conscious? Still alive?) was raw from the harsh shouts and screams, and possibly metal from their lion piercing it. Their heard shouting that wasn't their own, people calling their name and pleading their to say something, the team falling into shambles at the sudden disappearance.

They couldn't respond.

Swirling, swirling, the walls were swirling and the view from the glass of their lion wasn't doing much better.

And finally, they blacked out into the sweet darkness and floating sensation of nothing, of vulnerability that they couldn't control or care about in that state.

...

For a few seconds, anyway.

But apparently, during those few seconds the audio had cut out too, letting them drown in their own voice and their straining body, and oh god when would the wormhole end, is that the opening or am I just dying dear lord.

The green lion shook, shooting out of the portal bumpily. Heavily damaged, the lion and its pilot rocketed forward, speeding to- 

A planet. A very earth-like planet.... Pidge would've been more than extremely concerned had they been fully conscious and able to control their body, but alas, they were even more battered than the machine they were in. 

Heading forward, forward, burning up and losing a few pieces of armor in the planet's atmosphere, it crashed on what seemed to be a beach.

And Pidge was out again, their lion shutting down with them.

\----

Steven was sitting in the front room, talking with Connie on the phone and staring out the windows. She was explaining one of her favorite books to him, and he was enthralled.

"And then what?"

"Okay, so after he runs away the government comes after him and there's this really amazing and surprisingly well-written chase scene where h-" 

Steven yelled out, and Connie went silent. The floor had started shaking.

He pressed his face to the windows immediately, stumbling back when he saw something big and green falling from the sky. However, it looked... at least a little damaged. He couldn't tell, there were more important things to worry about. Oh no oh no oh no is this another gem ship what else could it be oh no-

"Connie I have to go there's something falling from the sky look out your window stay safe gottagobye!" He clicked his phone shut, turning on his heel to the other side of the room.

"Garnet! Amethyst! Pearl! There's something falling from the sky and it DOESN'T LOOK VERY GOOD!"

Immediately, Garnet came out of the temple door, pacing to the window and stiffening at the sight. Then followed Pearl, and finally Amethyst, only to gape and make a startled noise.

Pearl was worried. "What do they want with us now?! Why are they here again?? Aaaaaaa we're doomed we're doomed we're so doomed-"

Steven, however, had moved outside and roused Lion from his resting place on the porch, shoving him inside before the thing could land. Yet, Lion was being extra stubborn, immediately putting his paws up on the door in a (vain, because Steven had locked it) effort to go back out. Why, Steven wondered.

The thing crashed into the beach, sending up a spray of sand and glass and tiny bits of metal to accompany a giant 'boom' as it landed. The house shook, bits of dust and tiny splinters of wood raining from the ceiling.

The ship, in the shape of.... a green animal? of some sort, was severely damaged, machinery falling off steadily and oil leaking from each and every little gap. It looked, in a word, bad.

Steven looked at the other gems. Pearl's eyes had gone comically wide, a hand to her mouth. Amethyst was flat out GAPING, staring intently at the lion. Garnet was stock still, muttering something under her breath. He caught the words 'Lion' and 'Paladin' and something that sounded like gibberish, before Pearl hunched her shoulders.

"They can't possibly be... real, can they, Garnet?" And here, Garnet looked back at her, a steely expression on her face.

"I do not know. Yet, we have solid proof here, so that should say more than anything else... But-" She looked back at the ship, at the head of the broken metal beast that was submerged in sand and debris. "If this is truly not a trap, the rider must be terribly injured. Maybe lost, already."

Pearl gasped, and she unlocked the door, rushing out with immense speed. Garnet followed after.

Amethyst, however, was still gaping. She looked at Steven, and then back at the mechanical animal that Pearl and Garnet were investigating. She looked back at Steven.

"We never told you the legends, did we...?" And Steven opened his mouth to ask, but Amethyst beat him to it. 

"A long, long time ago, ten-thousand years, there was a group of five people. They weren't human, or gem, or anything that we know about, but they were there. The Paladins, as we call 'em. The leader, calm and collected. The fun one, hyper, loud, and nice. The temperamental one, they got annoyed easily. The friendly one, always caring and kind. Finally, the intelligent one, sneaky and loyal.

"Each of them had a huge metal robot, fueled with magic. The five lions," and here Steven gasped, and Amethyst smiled, "Black, blue, red, yellow, and green respectively, were very powerful. As a team, they could... fuse, sort of, to form the most powerful thing in the universe. A machine named Voltron.

"Of course, these were just legends, as we didn't have any proof or any written history or anything... But now-" She gestured to the outside, then grinned. Steven's eyes were impossibly wide.

"This is so COOL!" He yelled, grinning ear to ear in an expression worthy of Amethyst's.

And as they watched, Garnet and Pearl finally entered the ship.


	2. Two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: Gore/blood in semigraphic depictions
> 
> Just finished chapter 3 so I thought it was time to publish this one.
> 
> I'm not going to have a publishing schedule but I'll do my best at at least once a week or so!
> 
> Enjoy this chapter!

Blood, there was so, so much blood. Staining the walls, floor, ceiling, glass, in splatters and drips. Pearl put a hand over her mouth and took a step back.

The metal had fallen all over the head, leaving swinging bars and control panels and ceiling tiles hanging by a single frayed wire. 

 

Aside from the deep red blood, a stark contrast for the presumably cheery green interior, there were pools of thick, black oil and green goop in shades of neon and murky greenish-gray. Pearl just hoped it wasn't vomit.

Garnet, however, wasn't so sidetracked, and aside from a large wince at the interior of the head and a quick second of storing the information for later, she was busy checking for anything alive in the room.

In a chair by the glass of the Lion's eyes- they still had a hard time believing this was real but it seemed to get more and more clear by the second- there was a singular, mutilated, bloody lump of a person.

Wearing green armor, this person was only around Amethyst's height. Their hair was matted with blood, and... there were no alien features. If anything, it seemed human. Pearl hurried up next to Garnet and gasped. There was a thin metal beam straight through the person's (The Paladin's, Garnet internally corrected) neck, and another through it's stomach. 

Garnet picked the Paladin up and carefully held it in her arms, doing her best not to jostle it and make its wounds worse Pearl noticed a bag- a bloodstained human backpack, or at least something eerily similar- next to the battered chair, and picked that up, following after Garnet as she began to leave.

\---

Steven looked away and to the door as he heard the sounds of footsteps coming from up the stairs. Both were just a little bit heavier, a little bit harder than they were normally, and a little bit more hurried- the only clues that they had something or found something important. 

As he watched through the screen of the front door, Garnet's hair quickly appeared in view, followed by the rest of her. In her hands was a bloody mess of metal and fabric and... a body, dripping down her hands and onto the patio. Pearl hurried behind, a backpack stained with the same red in her grasp.

Steven immediately pales, looking away with tears threatening to fall. This person, whoever it is, is so badly injured and he can't do anything and this is so horrible and

Amethyst is next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder and muttering what seems to be a story about her and Vidalia in his ear and he feels just a little bit better. 

"Steven," Garnet calls, "Should we put them.... on your bed? Or on the couch?" And there, it's clear that Garnet is worried and that she doesn't know much about humans and medicine besides what Greg had taught her when they started taking care of Steven and it didn't include anything for this. 

He doesn't turn around. "Well," he begins, "healing powers would be great, but since they haven't been... right, the best option would be to take them to the hospital! Yeah, the hospital, Connie's mom works there and I can probably talk to Connie and she had the gem mutants as patients so even if..." He gestured wildly in front of him, "they are an alien, maybe she can do something for them..." 

He trails off when he sees Lion, forgotten in the rush of saving the person of legends that might just be real. Lion is standing still and staring at them and then he slides his front paws forward and is Lion bowing???

Then, while the Gems have all turned to look at him, Lion gets back up and trots over to Garnet, and Steven looks just a bit to the left, and then he's tossing his head back.

"Oh!" Steven exclaims, grinning. "Lion wants to take them to the hospital!" And although Pearl looks concerned, she nods and so does Garnet and then there's red staining Lion's pink fur but Steven can look because Lion's cotton-candy mane is hiding the body from view. 

"It should be secure now," Garnet says after a few seconds with a borrowed whip from Amethyst and some duct tape that was stored in Pearl's gem.

Lion stares at him, too, and Steven furrows his eyebrows and nods and says "Lion wants me to go with him." And then he has a bloodied backpack on his shoulders and he's keeping his eyes trained on the cloud of Lion's mane and pointedly not looking at the body as he gets on and then Lion opens a portal and jumps through.

\---

He's quietly pacing through the hospital corridor, his hands freed of any blood from the backpack that he left beside the... Paladin's bed and he has a small smile on his face. He's talking to Connie through the phone again while her mom is examining the bloodied body.

"And so then what happened?" She asked, and Steven gladly obliged.

"And then the lion-thing crashed into the beach and the whole house shook- the machine is, like, three times the size of my house! and there was a big boom with sand flying everywhere..."

The conversation finished and idled into other things, talk of school and Lapis and Peridot and their next training session and eventually Dr. Maheswaren came outside, wearing plastic gloves that were dripping with the same sickly red color that he'd just seen so much of.

"Your... friend appears to have possibly fatal injuries," and here Steven turned the phone on speaker and Connie went quiet, trying to listen too. "We'll need to remove the metal and shrapnel all over their body as soon as possible, and the two places they've been impaled seem to be making them take a turn for the worse."

Steven gasped, holding a hand to his mouth, the other wrapped around his small cellphone in a death grip.

"However, you got them here just in time. If it had been a few minutes sooner, they might not have made it. Nothing seems to be infected and they don't have metal poisoning. They also appear to be.... human." And here, she looked uncomfortable, as if the idea of magical humans and aliens and such made her squirm a bit- not that he could blame her, with all that had happened to Connie and the gem mutants she had been stuck with.

"But..." And he waited. "They appear to be between fourteen and twenty years of age." And Steven tensed a bit because that was so much younger than he was expecting them to be and that's like near HIS age and wow.

Connie made a noise through the speaker of the phone and Steven frowned but nodded. "They'll be okay, though.... right?" 

And Dr. Maheswaren frowned back. "Well, if we can begin operating within the next two hours, we have a good chance of saving them. Whether they'll wake up, however..." 

"They have to!" Steven exclaimed, a determined look in his eyes. "They will, I just know it!"

And the doctor gave a startled laugh and a weak smile, and she just nodded, walking down the corridor. 

\---

The Crystal Gems had long since arrived, waiting with Steven for any news on how the operation was going. Seconds ticked into minutes ticked to hours and soon it was nearly midnight and he was tired and pretty hungry, but he was still sitting in the waiting chair for any news. 

Steven didn't know why he was waiting for news on someone he didn't know. He felt like he had to- was it his caring nature? An instinct of some kind? Maybe he just wanted to know the status of a possible celebrity?

Pearl came back- he hadn't noticed she had left, he must be more tired than he thought, holding a steaming mug of... something in one hand and a small sandwich on a plate in the other. 

He gratefully took the mug, plain white and filled with hot chocolate, and the sandwich, and slowly began to eat.

He quickly finished the sandwich and sipped on the hot chocolate, his eyes slowly, slowly drifting shut and fluttering open again, only for the lids to sink a bit lower. He felt someone gently take the half-full mug from his hands as he leaned on someone's shoulder- warm and comfortable- and let himself drift into a doze.


	3. Three.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really enjoying writing this fic! I've gotten way more positive feedback than I was expecting, and so soon! While I'm writing this author's note- it's the day after I wrote the first chapter and only a few hours after I've published it and I've already gotten 60 hits and 15 kudos??? bless you guys you're so amazing!! QAQ
> 
> UPDATE: 120 hits and 18 kudos!!! oh my gOD guys
> 
> UPDATE 2: 200 and 25??? aaaAAA okay I'll stop updating now
> 
> (Maybe it's actually not that popular and I'm just used to using a different site... Oh well.) Anyway-
> 
> WARNINGS: probably still a lil blood, and maybe a panic attack?? uh Pidge might hurt themself a bit if they freak out, on accident, so warnings for that? yeah.
> 
> (I write the warnings before I write the chapters like an idiot.)
> 
> anyway, enjoy chapter three of Two Small People And Their Lions!

Pidge couldn't think, couldn't breathe, their head felt like it was filled with quicksand- no, fog- no, lead- helium, iron, goop, water, blood. Their heartbeat pounded in their ears, and the pain. The pain, now that was something else. 

Worse than a broken bone or being hit in the face with a steel girder or any multitude of things they had felt before, and they didn't want to be around to become more lucid and thus, feel more pain.

They went back under to the sound of a voice calling.

The next time they woke up, it was slowly and groggily. Everything hurt, their neck felt like they fell asleep at their computer and stayed hunched over for a year without anything to drink and their torso felt like all of Hunk's weight was converging onto a singular pinpoint, but they were alive.

Bleary, mind foggy, they thought. Hunk... 

Shiro.  
Lance.  
Keith.  
Allura.  
Coran.

None of them were there and the team couldn't protect them, they were too young to be alone they weren't old enough weren't wise enough and their old insecurities came crashing down.

They tried to shout, call out for anyone, their friends, family, anyone, and their voice wouldn't work and it made their throat flare up with flames of pain and their family was probably dead and their friends were gone, they probably didn't want to be friends with a weak child like them anyway, all of them were so much older than Pidge and they just broke down.

Curling up on themself, they wrapped their arms around their knees, noticing that they were wearing a hospital gown and there aren't hospitals in the castle-ship why am I wearing a hospital gown but they were also dealing with pain, dull and everywhere, sharp and pinpointed, overall BAD, and they were pretty sure they were on heavy pain drugs and they sobbed into their knees. It still hurt, the sobs making the pain ever present and fierce, but they couldn't stop and it just made the sobbing worse into a cycle of no return.

Broken sounds echoed from the room, and as Dr. Maheswaren rushed in, followed by a pair of nurses, Steven startled awake.

\---

It had been three days since the mysterious Paladin had been rushed in and Steven had gone home around noon every day for a couple hours of hanging out, playing with lion, all the normal non-gem stuff. But then he returned to prepare for another long night of sleeping on a chair.

He was, at the moment, dozing again when he heard a muffled noise. He groaned and tried to get comfortable against someone (Amethyst, by the blue of soft violet meeting his bleary eyes) again but hurried footsteps rushed past, shocking him into getting up.

He sat up further, rubbing his eyes and blinking. Through the window reaching the hallway they were in, Steven saw the blurred, silhouetted form of Dr. Maheswaren behind the curtains. And, on the tough hospital bed, there was a lump.

A lump that was sitting up and apparently quivering, if the dark shape through the curtains was to be believed. He nudged Amethyst awake- the only other gem who had been sleeping- as he watched the doctor approach the bed, the nurses standing firmly in the corner of the room. 

The figure flinched away, curling in further on themself. Dr. Maheswaren slowly came closer, resting what looked like a hand- shapes were fuzzy that far from the window, on the figure's back. Muffled, soothing words echoed from the door, and the Crystal Gems watched intently. Seconds ticked into minutes and slowly, ever so slowly the figure stopped shuddering. 

It seemed to slump into the bed before turning to the doctor.

\---

Pidge had scratched their arms while shaking, pinpricks of blood on crescent indents a harsh red on their extremely pale skin. When did they get so pale? What had happened?

They slumped, not quite calm but wary, more interested in analyzing their situation. They saw their bayard on a chair in the corner, resting atop a torn and bloodied pile of white and green metal and black fabric scraps. It seems that their paladin armor had been... quite wrecked, during-

They suddenly turned to the nearest person in the room, seeing two more standing in a corner over the other's shoulder. They opened their mouth, and began to speak when they had a coughing fit, wracking their whole body and sending shivers of the same, intense-but-nulled-by-drugs pain they had been feeling since they woke up through their spine. Bits of blood splattered into their lap and the covers, and they felt their eyes shine with tears.

There was a soothing hand on their back again, they had felt it a few minutes (or maybe hours? They couldn't tell) before, during their fit of emotion. They got their breathing under control, downing a glass of what seemed to be water in one gulp and giving a silent sigh.

The person before them gave a weak smile. "Hello, I'm Dr. Maheswaren. And you are?" She looked... Human. And Pidge held the tiniest bit of hope, just a spark, but it couldn't be. They didn't want it to be. They would be so FAR away from their team, from their family in all but blood. And anyway, so many species looked a bit like humans. It just wasn't happening.

Pidge furrowed their eyebrows, before sitting upright and leaning over the side of the bed. Resting there was their backpack, and they hailed it onto their lap. In the smallest pocket, they pulled out a notebook and a pen, one of the things they were most glad they had had in their backpack before leaving Earth.

They flipped to a new page, ignoring the bloodstains on the corners and beginning to write in a messy scrawl. Then they paused, scratched out what they were writing, and began again.

Can you read this? The page read, and they flipped the notebook around to show to an only mildly startled doctor.

"I can." She said, and that was all the signal they needed. Pidge started writing with their loopy chicken scratch at a furious pace (internally wondering what the chances were of another species both speaking and writing the same way), adding more and more and more. 

I'm Pidge, why? Have I been captured? Why was that wormhole there? Why did I get so injured? Are you Galra? Wait, no, you couldn't be, you don't have the purple skin. Are you... An altean?? Some other kind of alien? What planet are we on? What planets even have hospitals anyway? Then, they gasped silently, realizing something. 

I demand you tell me where the rest of Voltron is! What have you done with my crew? Where's my lion?? Is it okay??? Does Zarkon have it?? Where's Shiro? Lance, Keith, Hunk, Coran, Allura??? What's going on??

They immediately tore out the paper and thrust it at the now-bewildered doctor. As she read, her eyebrows furrowed further and further, and eventually she just sighed and looked up, with a muttered "excuse me, I'll be right back."

And as soon as she was gone, she was back, a young boy in tow, and he was gripping the hand of-

Purple. Someone purple.

Pidge immediately dived for their bayard, feeling IVs and blood drips and a morphine tube and things that they didn't realize they had rip out of their skin and the pain made them feel like they were dying, they wanted to double over and scream, they were sure that wounds were reopening but they couldn't stop then.

They grasped the weapon, immediately spinning on their heel and pointing the green weapon at the purple creature who...

Didn't look to be a Galra officer, or a sentry, or even a Galra at all. It just looked.... Like a human woman, but purple. Their- probably her, but Pidge knew better than anyone not to assume- eyes were wide and their hands were in the air, giving a plain message of 'surrender' or, as some people liked to interpret it, 'please don't hurt me.'

They stopped short, the bayard clattering to the floor of the now silent room and breaking into another coughing fit in front of the three occupants of the room- the nurses had seemingly fled while they were distracted.

The doctor immediately rushed over to help them, and soon they were back in the bed with an extra blanket (Crimson this time, better to hide the blood that was currently staining the rest of the hospital bed) and with the young boy reading and answering their questions out loud, they purple creature listening intently.

"Well," he began, startling Pidge, "I'm Steven, and this is Amethyst! You definitely haven't been... captured? Why would you be captured and put in a hospital? I don't know what you're talking about, with a wormhole and injuries and 'Galra' and 'Alteans', whatever those are. BUT, Amethyst... Is probably what caused you to get so scared, if the 'Galra' things have purple skin."

The purple creature gave a sheepish smile- named Amethyst, was that an Amethyst gem inlaid in their skin? 

"So, this is Amethyst and she's actually really nice! She wouldn't hurt you unless you were a corrupted gem or from Homeworld- but you're not so you don't need to worry! Anyway...

"Well, I mean I guess me and the other Crystal Gems-" and here, the boy pulled the curtains back to show a pale, gangly white alien speaking to a blocky red one, "are aliens, but everyone else here isn't! You're on Earth!" 

And Pidge just froze.


	4. Four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: A poorly written panic attack and possible swearing?
> 
> Wow, writer's block still hasn't hit me yet! I'm actually amazed to be honest. (Update: And of course, I jinxed it and now I have writer's block for this chapter.)
> 
> Also, you guys on AO3 are so amazing??? It's incredible!
> 
> I'll try to respond to as many comments as I can (aka I'll likely spend a bunch of time replying bc I love you guys) but I may not be able to respond to all of them. JK JK I'll spend hours if I need to whoops
> 
> Anyway, back to this story! After this chapter it'll probably be less angsty and Mary-sue. Probably.
> 
> Enjoy!

Steven was talking about things to the Paladin- Pidge, he mentally corrected. And yet...

As soon as the word 'Earth' had left his lips he knew it was the wrong thing to say, the thing that this person never wanted to hear. They just stopped.

Wide eyes stared at him, mouth parted ever so slightly, and it was a look of pure disbelief. Then, they made a strangled noise, and Dr. Maheswaren gently ushered him and Amethyst out of the room.

"I knew this was a bad idea, I should've kept the patient under anesthesia until they were better and less receptive to shock... Oh, dear..."

And Steven was back in the chair again, watching the doctor step back into the room and close the door.

Amethyst looked... Genuinely concerned, for once, and the look was mirrored tenfold by Steven. They shuffled back to the chairs, where a worried Pearl and a stoic Garnet were waiting (familiarity is nice, this is familiar, Steven thought).

"What happened?" Pearl asked, eyes darting over Steven and then Amethyst like a nervous caretaker, which, to be fair, she kind of was. "Are you two okay? Is the... Paladin alright?"

Steven sighed, and quickly recounted the 'answering questions, they freaked out' bit, and...

"Oh! They said- well, wrote, hahah- that their name was Pidge! I wonder if that stands for something... Pigeon? Pidgey? Pidgeoto, Pidgeot? Pfft, probably not those ones-" and just like that, Steven was back into his cheery, if more-quiet-than-normal mood.

\---

Pidge felt like they were drowning in the torrent of emotion swirling in their chest, along with the throbbing pain of being half-dead and intense hammering of their heart.

Earth.

The word, the planet, something they'd never dare to hope to see again. They wanted to fight the war, finish the war, win the war, and Pidge knew it could take months, years, lifetimes, and they didn't care.

Being on their home planet, though....

It made them feel like everything they had worked for, all their walls and determination had just crumbled into dust, left by a void and an ugly hope that they hadn't felt in so, so long.

They were sure they were pale, sheet white and clammy, but the thought was a sailboat in a sea of white noise- lost and forgotten with the crashing waves of panic.

The adrenaline rushed through their system, making them buzz and shake, squirm and cry, their stomach doing somersaults and their eyes producing a river, their mouth dry as the desert that Keith used to live in and tasting of bile and copper.

There was screaming, screaming in the distance, belonging to some unknown voice and it just egged them on, the white noise drowning them and they couldn't breathe, what's happening to me help help help no no no no I killed him they got hurt my brother's gone what do I do there's no one here to help me I'm too young for this oh no-

They felt a pressure on their arm after what could have been minutes, hours, days, and the buzzing got louder. Warm and firm, it scared them, what was happening were they being captured by the Galra is that what there's a hand on their arm and... oh. 

They feel the calloused flesh, faintly at first, and then more strongly. Definitely not Galra, then. The panic tried to pull them back under, but they resisted, instead straining their ears to hear a voice through the buzz and adrenaline and fear.

"Okay...... Everythi.... 1, 2... 5..... Breathe..." And Pidge listened, or at least tried, their breath coming fast and shaky and unstable, but the voice adjusted the time and they started feeling calmed, they could feel the clothes on their skin and the sheets under their legs and the hand on their arm and one on their shoulder, too and-

They blinked away the tears, looking up at the doctor through warbled, watery vision and the feeling of split lips and lack of oxygen and managed to scratch a single word onto the notebook through the fire in their veins.

'Thanks.'

 

And the doctor gave them a small, sad smile, like she had seen this so many times before, and Pidge managed a weak grin before the adrenaline stopped buzzing and the tiredness after all that emotion seeped in, dragging them back to sleep.

\---

Dr. Maheswaren did a few tests, making sure that this very, very odd and probably miserable person was truly asleep and still okay, eventually calling back one of the nurses that had fled to adjust the IVs accordingly and watch over them. The nurses were definitely getting demerits for that.

She sighed, leaving the room and giving a small smile at the sight of Steven and his... weird... alien.... moms. The sight was familiar and comforting, even if it was a bit strange.

Steven looked up, a worried frown on his face. "Are they okay? Did I do something wrong?" He looked haggard, felt haggard, and he was still afraid for a stranger even before he was told that they were the stuff of legends.

Honestly, Steven knew he should be less trusting, especially with everything going on, but he just couldn't bring himself to.

"They're fine. We'll have to see how much scarring they'll receive as time goes on and I don't think they noticed the skin grafts yet and... Well, medical things.

"You didn't do anything wrong, you couldn't have known that they would panic like that. Honestly I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner." 

Steven loved seeing how different Connie's mom acted in the hospital, but it was also a bit... odd. Oh well.

"That's good." He looked back to his feet and felt Amethyst give him a clap on the back, in her oddball way of comfort.

Everything was fine. Yeah, he'd like to keep thinking that.


	5. Five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS- injury recovery?? yeah there's nothing bad this chapter besides Pidge being kinda fucked
> 
> aaaand here comes chapter five!!! I know this story isn't technically """popular""" or whatever butttt there's 700+ hits apparently??? and I've been blessed because y'all are amazing??????
> 
> ((also what the FUCK how do people manage to churn out stories so quickly, like some people are off with 3 5k+ chapters in two days and I'm here struggling to get 2k a month
> 
> update; fuck me I thought I would have this chapter out like 2 weeks ago but other things got in the way.))
> 
> I'll make sure to do something special for all the milestones! maybe some omake chapters with fluff or something--- or we could get that tragic backstory of why Pidge is so scared of the color purple :')))
> 
> also by the time I post this chapter school will probably be out for me so chapters may be longer or come out quicker!! get excited y'all because I've been anticipating a few lil plot points-
> 
> okay enjoy chapter 5!!

Ms. Colleen Holt had always been a bit of a realist, herself.

With a husband whos thoughts were always cheerful, yet grounded in reality; a son who's mindset was near-painfully optimistic, and a daughter who had a mind balanced in the oddest way between idealism and pessimism, she felt like she needed to be there to stick everything together with what should be truth.

//it had been so long since her husband and son were missing, her daughter was acting strange. geniuses were always kind of odd, though, and as someone who had graduated highschool at 12, her (probably friendless, she hadn't heard talk of friends since Katie was 7) daughter was allowed to be weird.//

That's why, when her home phone got a call from a hospital in California, according to the advanced caller ID built by her daughter, she furrowed her brow and denied it. They probably had the wrong number.

//her daughter was off to college without even letting her mom come with her to campus or see her plane ticket. so self sufficient.

Katie never called.//

When they called again, she felt a bit of concern. Were they calling her on purpose, or had they just called her back without rechecking the phone number, or something else?

Colleen let it ring and ring and ring until it went to voicemail.

//when she emailed and then rung the college, they told her that Katie had received a scholarship but never responded past the initial application. never signed up, never arrived.//

When the speaker-base clicked on, a female voice spoke. "Hello, hello? Is this to the residence of Colleen Holt? This is Dr. Maheswaren, and I would appreciate it if you would pick up the phone." A pause, and a faint sigh. "Well, please-"

//she was worried, so, so worried. she didn't call the police, though. at 13, Katie knew what she was doing. Colleen felt like a horrible, terrible parent, but Katie had to know what she was doing. hopefully.//

A click. "-call ba... oh!"

Colleen hummed into the speaker. "This is Colleen Holt speaking. Is there something in particular you needed me for...?"

//she wasn't stupid. when she saw on the tv how three galaxy garrison students had gone missing, the one by far the shortest looking like a clone of her long-lost son, she knew.//

"Yes, actually." The voice on the phone answered. "You see, we have a patient here who... fell from the sky?" a muffled 'Steven, what?'

"Anyway, they say their name is Pidge and they're claiming to be your child...? Is this true? They're in pretty bad condition, barely stable, after all."

And that was when she stilled. Pidge, the name her Katie had taken on screen, sneaking into the Garrison (against her wishes) and staying for months until she disappeared.

She was hurt, maybe, but she was okay. Katie was alive.

Colleen gave a small sob of relief and a big smile. She pulled her laptop closer and began to type in the name of an airport.

"Yes! Yes, that's my daughter. What... happened to her? Can I speak with her, please?"

And the jumbled, not-nearly-complete explanations began.

\---

Pidge woke up for the third time. 

After they had passed out after having a practical panic attack and threatening some purple alien that wasn't... them, they woke up again and answered questions of the doctor.

Of course, after a little while they once again remembered that their mom could be easily contacted and promptly broke down. 

After that, the young boy had come back and tried to soothe them, and they fell asleep.

Now, however, the doctor was smiling and talking on the phone, to their mom, with the boy- named Steven, helping her with the backstory as he had it as to their injuries. And it was so much, but they were there and it was really really real. 

Wow.

And Pidge kind of felt really bad about being gone for years without so much as a proper goodbye but it wasn't really their fault, they meant to drop off the face of the earth but not literally drop (fly?) off the face of the earth.

Pidge must've spaced out for a second because by the time they snapped back to reality the doctor was just hanging up the phone and Steven was sitting on the end of the bed, grinning at them from where he was perched.

"So," he began, "I never really finished answering your questions!"

He pulled the notebook closer to him, mouthing the words as he re-read the last paragraph. Pidge flushed, thinking about their (rightful) panic.

I demand you tell me where the rest of Voltron is! What have you done with my crew? Where's my lion?? Is it okay??? Does Zarkon have it?? Where's Shiro? Lance, Keith, Hunk, Coran, Allura??? What's going on??

Steven looked back up at them, a bit sheepish. Pidge gave him the same look in return.

"Well, I don't know where the rest of your crew is, but your lion thing is in my yard!" He gives a toothy grin. 

"I have a lion too, you know!" And before Pidge can do much more than splutter for a second, he continues, "but mine is an actual living lion! Well, sorta. He's pink and I can store stuff in his mane and he can make portals with his mouth and his fur smells like cotton candy sometimes!"

The portal thing seemed a bit odd but Pidge was rather a bit too drugged to care.

They did grabby-hands for the notebook, knowing it was childish and shrugging it off. Scribbling something down, they returned it.

Thanks.


	6. Bonus 1: 4th of July

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS: PTSD, Panic Attacks, Flashbacks, Mentions of fireworks and war and all that dangerous stuff. Basically if you get triggered by this stuff easily, please don't read this chapter. also if you're offended by things being factually incorrect (I don't know why you're reading this story but) this chapter definitely isn't accurate.
> 
> ALSO VERY IMPORTANT; this chapter displays some very very incorrect (and a few correct but mostly not) ways to deal with most people's panic attacks, please do not attempt anything shown in this chapter on someone actually having a panic attack unless discussed and approved by said person prior to an attack. or, y'know, looking it up to see which ones are safe. 
> 
> Anyway since I'm pretty sure we've reached around 1,000 hits AND 100 kudos (I never expected people to like my work this much I'm scREAMING) this is a short bonus chapter! There will be more of these for other milestones, holidays, and events in the future so don't you worry about that.
> 
> I just want to say thank you all so much! also this is over a month late I know and I'm sorry but I have an excuse (but not a good one)--
> 
> Enjoy this little Fourth of July bonus! y'all can decide if it's canon in the story or not <3

It started off as a few small cracks and bangs, probably firecrackers. It was fine.

Anyway, Pidge didn't even hear it. Curled up next to Steven's television, they furiously typed away at a new code for their lion, headphones blaring with new music that they wanted to catch up on.

As the time passed and the sun started to set, the firecrackers morphed into fizzling fountains into the big, big fireworks with core-shaking booms and balls of fire looking like they're aimed at your head and explosions with showers of sparks a thousand meters long in any one direction.

\---

Steven found Pidge curled up in his room, shaking.

He was just going to get a few sparklers to add to their pile for the beach, and the gems were already outside with his dad (and Connie). He also wanted to see if Pidge wanted to come and watch the fireworks, because they're nostalgic and fun and he loved sharing them with his family and Pidge was practically family by that point.

But there they were, in a tight ball with arms over their head, shivering and whimpering and acting like the roof was going to come crashing over their head.

He gasped quietly, and Pidge flinched away and their shaking increased tenfold, trying to curl up on themselves tighter, their head between their knees.

Steven remembered earlier that day, Connie talking about how the holiday was bad for war veterans and how there was something called "PTSD", giving them flashbacks and trauma and scaring them half to death. It had sounded horrible and he didn't want to think about how many people suffered from it. He was glad the gems didn't have quite the same psychology, and glad that nothing traumatic enough [in his subconscious anyway, other people probably could've developed it from a fraction of what he had seen] had happened to him.

Well, he thought, this is one way to get first-hand experience.

He shuffled over, being quiet enough not to be startling but loud enough to make sure Pidge knew he was there.

"Pidge." Steven called, gently nudging their shoulder. "Pidge, it's me, Steven?" Their response was a quiet whimper and to curl tighter into their pile of limbs.

Steven's eyes went glassy at the noise- Pidge sounded so scared and heartbroken. He flung his arms open and engulfed them in a hug, making Pidge flinch and shutter.

"Shh... it's okay, it's okay! It's just me, Steven, you're safe here! And when you're better we can go watch the firew... OH."

Steven wanted to slap himself. No duh, of course Pidge wouldn't want to see the fireworks, they're probably what made them like this.

"We don't have to see the fireworks, we can just... stay here and watch movies? Yeah, yeah, that sounds good, maybe some silent movies! Those are cool, right?"

Steven eventually released Pidge from the death grip he had on them, rubbing their back as they slowly got a little less tense. He kept talking and talking about everything and nothing at all, effectively distracting them.

At some point, he texted his dad and Connie both to explain what had happened and that they probably shouldn't see the fireworks for fear of leaving Pidge alone, and both of them agreed with him. Soon, everyone was crowded around Steven's old, taped-up box TV, watching The Wizard Of Oz with the volume halfway down.

Pidge was curled up in the center of the floor with their back against the base of Steven's bed, blankets engulfing them. Steven sat on a pillow next to them, engulfed completely and totally in the movie but eyes flickering to them every few minutes to make sure they were okay and that they were dealing with the booms and cracks of shuddering fireworks.

"Thanks..." they whispered, and Steven smiled. Seems like this holiday had turned out alright, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smh with how long this took I better get to writing the damned Halloween or holiday special, idk if I'm gonna do both??


	7. Hiatus

I’m putting this story on hold for now, as I’ve fallen out of Voltron completely and i’m less interested in SU than I used to be.

Maybe i’ll finish it or rewrite it eventually, who knows.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this fic! If you think it could use improvement, please tell me what I can do to make it as enjoyable for future readers as it can possibly be! And thank you again!


End file.
